Documentation / git-checkout.txton commit merge-recursive --renormalize (7610fa5)
   1git-checkout(1)
   2===============
   3
   4NAME
   5----
   6git-checkout - Checkout a branch or paths to the working tree
   7
   8SYNOPSIS
   9--------
  10[verse]
  11'git checkout' [-q] [-f] [-m] [<branch>]
  12'git checkout' [-q] [-f] [-m] [[-b|--orphan] <new_branch>] [<start_point>]
  13'git checkout' [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [<tree-ish>] [--] <paths>...
  14'git checkout' --patch [<tree-ish>] [--] [<paths>...]
  15
  16DESCRIPTION
  17-----------
  18Updates files in the working tree to match the version in the index
  19or the specified tree.  If no paths are given, 'git checkout' will
  20also update `HEAD` to set the specified branch as the current
  21branch.
  22
  23'git checkout' [<branch>]::
  24'git checkout' -b <new branch> [<start point>]::
  25
  26        This form switches branches by updating the index, working
  27        tree, and HEAD to reflect the specified branch.
  28+
  29If `-b` is given, a new branch is created as if linkgit:git-branch[1]
  30were called and then checked out; in this case you can
  31use the `--track` or `--no-track` options, which will be passed to
  32'git branch'.  As a convenience, `--track` without `-b` implies branch
  33creation; see the description of `--track` below.
  34
  35'git checkout' [--patch] [<tree-ish>] [--] <pathspec>...::
  36
  37        When <paths> or `--patch` are given, 'git checkout' *not* switch
  38        branches.  It updates the named paths in the working tree from
  39        the index file or from a named <tree-ish> (most often a commit).  In
  40        this case, the `-b` and `--track` options are meaningless and giving
  41        either of them results in an error. The <tree-ish> argument can be
  42        used to specify a specific tree-ish (i.e. commit, tag or tree)
  43        to update the index for the given paths before updating the
  44        working tree.
  45+
  46The index may contain unmerged entries because of a previous failed merge.
  47By default, if you try to check out such an entry from the index, the
  48checkout operation will fail and nothing will be checked out.
  49Using `-f` will ignore these unmerged entries.  The contents from a
  50specific side of the merge can be checked out of the index by
  51using `--ours` or `--theirs`.  With `-m`, changes made to the working tree
  52file can be discarded to re-create the original conflicted merge result.
  53
  54OPTIONS
  55-------
  56-q::
  57--quiet::
  58        Quiet, suppress feedback messages.
  59
  60-f::
  61--force::
  62        When switching branches, proceed even if the index or the
  63        working tree differs from HEAD.  This is used to throw away
  64        local changes.
  65+
  66When checking out paths from the index, do not fail upon unmerged
  67entries; instead, unmerged entries are ignored.
  68
  69--ours::
  70--theirs::
  71        When checking out paths from the index, check out stage #2
  72        ('ours') or #3 ('theirs') for unmerged paths.
  73
  74-b::
  75        Create a new branch named <new_branch> and start it at
  76        <start_point>; see linkgit:git-branch[1] for details.
  77
  78-t::
  79--track::
  80        When creating a new branch, set up "upstream" configuration. See
  81        "--track" in linkgit:git-branch[1] for details.
  82+
  83If no '-b' option is given, the name of the new branch will be
  84derived from the remote branch.  If "remotes/" or "refs/remotes/"
  85is prefixed it is stripped away, and then the part up to the
  86next slash (which would be the nickname of the remote) is removed.
  87This would tell us to use "hack" as the local branch when branching
  88off of "origin/hack" (or "remotes/origin/hack", or even
  89"refs/remotes/origin/hack").  If the given name has no slash, or the above
  90guessing results in an empty name, the guessing is aborted.  You can
  91explicitly give a name with '-b' in such a case.
  92
  93--no-track::
  94        Do not set up "upstream" configuration, even if the
  95        branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable is true.
  96
  97-l::
  98        Create the new branch's reflog; see linkgit:git-branch[1] for
  99        details.
 100
 101--orphan::
 102        Create a new 'orphan' branch, named <new_branch>, started from
 103        <start_point> and switch to it.  The first commit made on this
 104        new branch will have no parents and it will be the root of a new
 105        history totally disconnected from all the other branches and
 106        commits.
 107+
 108The index and the working tree are adjusted as if you had previously run
 109"git checkout <start_point>".  This allows you to start a new history
 110that records a set of paths similar to <start_point> by easily running
 111"git commit -a" to make the root commit.
 112+
 113This can be useful when you want to publish the tree from a commit
 114without exposing its full history. You might want to do this to publish
 115an open source branch of a project whose current tree is "clean", but
 116whose full history contains proprietary or otherwise encumbered bits of
 117code.
 118+
 119If you want to start a disconnected history that records a set of paths
 120that is totally different from the one of <start_point>, then you should
 121clear the index and the working tree right after creating the orphan
 122branch by running "git rm -rf ." from the top level of the working tree.
 123Afterwards you will be ready to prepare your new files, repopulating the
 124working tree, by copying them from elsewhere, extracting a tarball, etc.
 125
 126-m::
 127--merge::
 128        When switching branches,
 129        if you have local modifications to one or more files that
 130        are different between the current branch and the branch to
 131        which you are switching, the command refuses to switch
 132        branches in order to preserve your modifications in context.
 133        However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current
 134        branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch
 135        is done, and you will be on the new branch.
 136+
 137When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting
 138paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts
 139and mark the resolved paths with `git add` (or `git rm` if the merge
 140should result in deletion of the path).
 141+
 142When checking out paths from the index, this option lets you recreate
 143the conflicted merge in the specified paths.
 144
 145--conflict=<style>::
 146        The same as --merge option above, but changes the way the
 147        conflicting hunks are presented, overriding the
 148        merge.conflictstyle configuration variable.  Possible values are
 149        "merge" (default) and "diff3" (in addition to what is shown by
 150        "merge" style, shows the original contents).
 151
 152-p::
 153--patch::
 154        Interactively select hunks in the difference between the
 155        <tree-ish> (or the index, if unspecified) and the working
 156        tree.  The chosen hunks are then applied in reverse to the
 157        working tree (and if a <tree-ish> was specified, the index).
 158+
 159This means that you can use `git checkout -p` to selectively discard
 160edits from your current working tree.
 161
 162<branch>::
 163        Branch to checkout; if it refers to a branch (i.e., a name that,
 164        when prepended with "refs/heads/", is a valid ref), then that
 165        branch is checked out. Otherwise, if it refers to a valid
 166        commit, your HEAD becomes "detached" and you are no longer on
 167        any branch (see below for details).
 168+
 169As a special case, the `"@\{-N\}"` syntax for the N-th last branch
 170checks out the branch (instead of detaching).  You may also specify
 171`-` which is synonymous with `"@\{-1\}"`.
 172+
 173As a further special case, you may use `"A...B"` as a shortcut for the
 174merge base of `A` and `B` if there is exactly one merge base. You can
 175leave out at most one of `A` and `B`, in which case it defaults to `HEAD`.
 176
 177<new_branch>::
 178        Name for the new branch.
 179
 180<start_point>::
 181        The name of a commit at which to start the new branch; see
 182        linkgit:git-branch[1] for details. Defaults to HEAD.
 183
 184<tree-ish>::
 185        Tree to checkout from (when paths are given). If not specified,
 186        the index will be used.
 187
 188
 189
 190Detached HEAD
 191-------------
 192
 193It is sometimes useful to be able to 'checkout' a commit that is
 194not at the tip of one of your branches.  The most obvious
 195example is to check out the commit at a tagged official release
 196point, like this:
 197
 198------------
 199$ git checkout v2.6.18
 200------------
 201
 202Earlier versions of git did not allow this and asked you to
 203create a temporary branch using the `-b` option, but starting from
 204version 1.5.0, the above command 'detaches' your HEAD from the
 205current branch and directly points at the commit named by the tag
 206(`v2.6.18` in the example above).
 207
 208You can use all git commands while in this state.  You can use
 209`git reset --hard $othercommit` to further move around, for
 210example.  You can make changes and create a new commit on top of
 211a detached HEAD.  You can even create a merge by using `git
 212merge $othercommit`.
 213
 214The state you are in while your HEAD is detached is not recorded
 215by any branch (which is natural --- you are not on any branch).
 216What this means is that you can discard your temporary commits
 217and merges by switching back to an existing branch (e.g. `git
 218checkout master`), and a later `git prune` or `git gc` would
 219garbage-collect them.  If you did this by mistake, you can ask
 220the reflog for HEAD where you were, e.g.
 221
 222------------
 223$ git log -g -2 HEAD
 224------------
 225
 226
 227EXAMPLES
 228--------
 229
 230. The following sequence checks out the `master` branch, reverts
 231the `Makefile` to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by
 232mistake, and gets it back from the index.
 233+
 234------------
 235$ git checkout master             <1>
 236$ git checkout master~2 Makefile  <2>
 237$ rm -f hello.c
 238$ git checkout hello.c            <3>
 239------------
 240+
 241<1> switch branch
 242<2> take a file out of another commit
 243<3> restore hello.c from the index
 244+
 245If you have an unfortunate branch that is named `hello.c`, this
 246step would be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch.
 247You should instead write:
 248+
 249------------
 250$ git checkout -- hello.c
 251------------
 252
 253. After working in the wrong branch, switching to the correct
 254branch would be done using:
 255+
 256------------
 257$ git checkout mytopic
 258------------
 259+
 260However, your "wrong" branch and correct "mytopic" branch may
 261differ in files that you have modified locally, in which case
 262the above checkout would fail like this:
 263+
 264------------
 265$ git checkout mytopic
 266fatal: Entry 'frotz' not uptodate. Cannot merge.
 267------------
 268+
 269You can give the `-m` flag to the command, which would try a
 270three-way merge:
 271+
 272------------
 273$ git checkout -m mytopic
 274Auto-merging frotz
 275------------
 276+
 277After this three-way merge, the local modifications are _not_
 278registered in your index file, so `git diff` would show you what
 279changes you made since the tip of the new branch.
 280
 281. When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with
 282the `-m` option, you would see something like this:
 283+
 284------------
 285$ git checkout -m mytopic
 286Auto-merging frotz
 287ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz
 288fatal: merge program failed
 289------------
 290+
 291At this point, `git diff` shows the changes cleanly merged as in
 292the previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted
 293files.  Edit and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with
 294`git add` as usual:
 295+
 296------------
 297$ edit frotz
 298$ git add frotz
 299------------
 300
 301
 302Author
 303------
 304Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 305
 306Documentation
 307--------------
 308Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 309
 310GIT
 311---
 312Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite